


What's "Homestuck?"

by cedarbranch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Homestuck References, i have nothing to say for myself. dont look at me, the jonmartin is only there if u squint but thats ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23202907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarbranch/pseuds/cedarbranch
Summary: Jon doesn't know what Homestuck is.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 28
Kudos: 128





	What's "Homestuck?"

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at a friend's request. however much u suffer, know that i suffered more.

Malachi Beckman’s statement is properly monstrous.

No matter how many tales of horror Jon has heard, each one always seems to suck him in more than the next. And Malachi’s statement is… entrancing. He sits in the chair across from Jon’s desk and talks about his job working the night shift at a twenty-four hour diner. How he walked down the dimly-lit street one night and saw something at the end of an alleyway, something with eyes that flashed green as he walked past. 

He talks about the feeling of being watched, then the certainty of it. The way he started carrying mace. Then, finally, the night he heard footsteps, and started to run. In a panic, he bolted away from his car. The streets offered him little respite. He managed to keep ahead of whatever was behind him, even as he could hear its heaving breath, and the pounding of heavy footsteps on the pavement. 

He kept running until the streets began to melt into suburbs, and he came across a park. It was set slightly below the area around it, and there was a small set of stairs leading down toward the walkways. He thought maybe he could find a tree large enough to hide in, or any way to stop and catch his breath, so he went down, but his panic made him sloppy. He slipped.

“And it was like…” 

Malachi hesitates. 

“It’s funny how when you’re terrified out of your mind, your thought processes don’t actually change that much,” he says. “So even though I was running for my life, and my hip was hurting like hell from the fall, for some goddamn reason the only thing I could think was ‘haha, wow, this is just like in Homestuck.’” He laughs at himself, somewhat uncomfortably. “Sorry, that was… just lightening the mood. I’m rambling, it’s whatever. You can take that out of the statement if you want. Anyway, I kept running…”

He did manage to escape, in the end. Made his way to a pay phone and called the police, told them to meet him a few blocks from his actual location. They made it there at about the same time, and the police managed to shoot whatever was behind him long enough to slow it down and get him in the car. He made it home, and he hasn’t seen the thing since. 

“I just…” Malachi shivers. “I keep feeling like it’s only a matter of time, you know? They shot that thing five times at least, but I’m telling you, I don’t think it was dead. I could still see something moving as we were driving away. I don’t know why, but I… I know it’s going to come back. It’ll find me, somehow.”

He exhales a quick laugh and shakes his head. “And there I am doing it again,” he says ruefully. “I always make jokes when I’m nervous, to cope or whatever. My brain keeps sticking on that Homestuck quote. Can’t outrun what’s already here, right? I can run, but wherever I go, that thing knows my scent now. It’ll be there. It’ll come for me.” 

He goes quiet, and looks away. Jon takes that as his cue, and reaches for the tape recorder. “Statement ends,” he says, and clicks it off. 

“Thanks,” says Malachi. “I know that probably didn’t make much sense. I don’t expect you to believe me, but… I needed someone to know. If—when I go missing, I want someone to know why.”

Jon’s chest twinges. “I know the feeling,” he says. “We’ll look into your statement and contact you if we find anything.”

Malachi gives him a small smile. “Thanks,” he says. “But I doubt you’ll be able to.”

He stands up and pushes his chair in, leaving without another word. Jon stares after him. 

He wishes he could be optimistic, that he could believe Malachi’s foreboding words were born out of paranoia and nothing more. But he’s worked at the Institute long enough to know that with these types of statements… well, follow-ups are never successful. It seems as if certain kinds of stories come with pre-packaged endings. 

Jon can’t tell what sets one statement apart from the next. Some are blatantly false, of course, so there’s no real concern for the fate of the storyteller. Others sit in a grey area, a nebulous fog of anticipation that leaves him thinking weeks afterwards, wondering what happened to those people, if they survived. 

And then some of them… well. Some of them only record on the tapes. 

Some of them come with a bone-deep chill that’s never felt otherwise. 

Jon wishes there was a way to figure it out in advance. Maybe if he could guess based on the content of the statement, then he could make some kind of note in the files, something telling the researchers to keep a close eye on the statement giver. But with this one… To be honest, Malachi’s little quips had thrown him off a bit. What had he meant when he said the monster was “already there?” He’d said he hadn’t seen it since that night, but his remark had seemed to indicate otherwise. 

It’s just another of those things that Jon has no context for.

He should probably try to find out what “Homestuck” is.

***

It’s no secret that Jon is not in the loop on popular culture. It’s been a damn long while since he’s had enough free time to watch the latest Netflix original or what have you, and even longer since he’s wanted to use the time he gets for anything other than sleep. It’s something of an office joke at this point—Tim constantly makes references that he knows Jon won’t understand, and then Melanie tries to keep a straight face and fails miserably. 

Jon doesn’t care, of course. It’s not a big deal. That’s just who he is: the one who’s out of touch. 

But it does get annoying when he can’t even understand what statement givers are trying to convey in their stories. 

So later that afternoon, after he finishes recording a statement about a game of hide and seek that went wrong, he finds himself wandering to the break room. He lingers outside the door for a moment. There are voices coming from inside—Tim, for sure, and Martin. 

Jon nudges the door open and goes in. 

“Jon!” says Martin, who is sitting on the couch. His face lights up. “H-how are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in here in ages.” 

“I didn’t even know you took breaks,” says Sasha, grinning. 

“Yes, well. It can’t be helped,” Jon says. He opens up the cupboard and takes down the kettle.

“Oh, are you making tea?” says Tim, who is half-lying on the couch with one of his legs in Martin’s lap. “Fancy making me a cup as well?”

“Fine,” Jon says absentmindedly. He fills the kettle up with water from the sink, sets it on the stove, and turns around. “Do any of you know what Homestuck is?”

Martin chokes on air. Tim bursts out laughing. He tries to sit up and help Martin, but only manages to fall off the couch, which makes him laugh even harder until he’s gasping on the floor. Sasha makes a truly valiant attempt at a straight face, but she ends up giggling as she’s patting Martin on the back. 

“All right, that’s enough,” Jon says irritably. “I was just asking.”

“Where in the hell did that come from?” Tim wheezes. “I mean—of _all_ the things to ask?” 

Jon turns back to the stove and adjusts the flame, trying to ignore the heat in his own cheeks. “It came up in a statement earlier today,” he mutters. “I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so I thought I’d get some clarification. In case it was important.”

“I guarantee you it was not important,” says Tim.

“Are you going to tell me what it is, then?”

“I feel like it would be better if you didn’t know,” says Tim. 

Jon’s just about to snap at him when an extremely red-faced Martin clears his throat and says, “I can.” It comes out kind of scratchy, so he clears his throat before trying again. “I can. I mean, I’m the only one of us who’s actually read it, so.” 

“So what is it, then?” Jon asks, leaning back against the counter. 

Martin adjusts his glasses. He opens his mouth, and Tim snickers. Martin’s cheeks flush a darker shade of red and he gives Tim a shove. “It’s a webcomic,” he says. 

Jon looks at him.

“Meaning?” he asks.

“Oh! It’s just, like, a comic that gets published online. Except it’s a little different from most webcomics, it’s mostly told through still images, flash animations, and chat logs.” 

Jon furrows his brow. Surely something so simple couldn’t have warranted a reaction like that. Well, unless it was so popular that him not knowing about it would be inconceivable. But he’s never really heard anyone talk about webcomics before, so that doesn’t seem quite right, either. 

“What is it… about?” he tries. 

“Four kids who play a video game that causes the end of the world,” Martin says at once, as if he’s had to supply the same answer countless times before. “Except they make some big mistakes and have to get help from a team of aliens who played the same game.”

Jon nods. “That sounds… fairly straightforward.”

“It’s not,” Tim says cheerfully.

“It’s actually one of the longest works in the English language,” Sasha pipes up. “Technically speaking, it fulfills all the requirements to be considered a traditional epic.”

“And neither of you have read it?” Jon asks.

“Everything I know I learned against my will,” says Tim.

“You tend to pick things up through osmosis,” Sasha adds. “This one used to be really into it.” She pokes Martin, who buries his face in his hands.

“You cosplay John _one_ time,” he says, his voice muffled. “One time! As a teenager!”

“That was not just cosplay,” Tim objects. “That was borderline kinning, Martin, and you know it.”

Jon blinks. “What’s—”

“No,” all three of them say in unison.

“That’s a conversation I am absolutely not getting into,” says Tim. “I do need to ask, though—how the hell did this get brought up in a statement?”

Jon shrugs. “He was running and he fell down a flight of stairs, and then he said something about how it reminded him of Homestuck.”

This sets them off laughing again. Martin looks like he is in mild physical pain. “Oh, God,” he says. “That’s… wow. Hell of a train of thought when your life’s in danger.”

Tim stops laughing just enough to say, “Makes sense, though. For everybody I’ve ever met who gets into it, that stuff gets burned into your brain. You never want to think about it, but you always do. Remember that time with the fruit gushers?”

“We don’t talk about the fruit gushers,” Martin says wearily. 

Jon is, as usual, completely lost. “Should I… read it?” he says tentatively.

“No,” Tim says at once, and Martin shakes his head emphatically. 

“No,” he says. “That’d be… no. Save yourself.”

“Is it bad?” Jon asks. He’s growing more confused by the minute.

“Yes,” says Tim, while Martin says, “No.” Martin sighs. “Okay, it does have a sort of—a reputation, I guess, but objectively, I do think it’s quite good. Not that I would ever say that to someone with any context. It’s a little bit… cringey, nowadays. People get the wrong idea if you go around saying you’re a fan.” 

Jon nods slowly. He can understand that. “He also mentioned something about a monster that you couldn’t outrun. I thought maybe… What kind of monster was he talking about? I thought there might be some kind of relation.”

“Doubt it,” says Martin. “Unless he was being chased by a time-traveling skullbeast that shoots lasers from its mouth.”

Jon deflates a little. “So he really was just joking, then,” he says. “It didn’t matter at all.” Now he’s gone and made a fool of himself for asking, and gotten no closer to understanding what makes one statement more legitimate than another. 

“No, hey,” says Martin, concerned. “It’s good that you followed up on it. That’s the mark of a thorough Archivist, right? I’d say that’s a job well done.” 

Jon sighs. “I still think he’s going to die,” he admits. “I just… have a bad feeling.”

“That happens sometimes. You did everything you could, Jon. And you got his story, so whatever happens, at least we’ll know.”

The kettle beeps. Jon turns around and pulls it off the flame, switching the stove off. “Maybe I should read this comic,” he says. “Give myself a distraction, something to take my mind off… death and monsters and things.”

Martin laughs quietly and pushes himself up from the couch. “I don’t think it would take your mind off it,” he says. “I don’t think you’d like it, anyway. Here.” He takes a mug from the cupboard, and a box of earl grey, passing a tea bag to Jon. “This’ll do much better.”

Tim makes a gagging sound from the couch. Sasha elbows him sharply. Jon tilts his head, confused, but Tim just smiles brightly at him. “Don’t mind me,” he says. “I’m just sitting here.”

“You’d better,” Martin says under his breath. 

It seems as if Jon is doomed to exist in a state of perpetual confusion.

But at least he has Martin and Tim and Sasha to be confused with. It would feel worse if it were anyone else, he thinks. He’s had his fair share of embarrassing moments. But Martin understands, and he doesn’t judge. Even if Jon still doesn’t really understand Homestuck, or statements, or much of anything in his life if he’s honest, at least he knows that not understanding is okay. 

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

**Author's Note:**

> follow my [tma blog](spiralsandeyes.tumblr.com) for more bad content


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